Sean Wilsey Reads an Excerpt from “LIVE! From Texas Death Row!” by Christopher Best
Sean Wilsey reads an excerpt from Christopher Best's “LIVE! From Texas Death Row!”, first-place winner for essay writing in PEN's 2005 Prison Writing Contest, at the 2009 event Breakout: Voices from Inside. Read the excerpt below.
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My first day on my death row job was hell, just like each day since.
Every day I confront blood and its consequences. Every day I struggle to keep my own life-force contained and flowing, beating back, cajoling, and deceiving Moloch away from my doorposts. As I tell you about it, the names herein have been changed to protect the living, the dead and to keep my ass from getting shanked. As a worker on death row, I am a member of the death society.
Each morning when I arrive at work, I hand my ID card to a guard at the building entrance. I swear, lately I have come to smell and taste the death-row building even before I step inside. As I walk in, I feel the dread on my flesh, even in me. Next comes the strip search, the ubiquitous humiliation of prison life, also magnified on death row because it’s conducted with much more detail, specificity and time. My co-workers and I remove every stitch of clothing. One guard carefully inspects each clothing item, turning socks, boxers, pants, and shirt inside-out, inspecting seams for hidden items, crinkling every square inch of fabric. Our shoes are bent, unlaced, pounded, and tossed, insoles left here and there on the floor. Next, each of us spreads our legs, opens our butt cheeks, shows the bottoms of our feet, holds up our package of manhood, opens our mouth, and turns all about, arms held high. Next, each of us sits on a metal-detecting chair, which looks at our guts with some sort of high-tech imaging, to make sure we haven’t swallowed a weapon or contraband. Next, we place our faces on a metal-detecting plate on the wall, first one side then the other, as a double-check on the mouth. From this point and all day long, a series of cameras bear down on us in all the hallways, and guards stationed at a series of gates check all movement and action.
Some of the cons on death row hang their heads low when they walk. Their time draws near. Others seem almost chipper. They smile, perhaps on their way to visitation, which is available every day to them, unlike the weekends-only for GP. Some guards respond well to the guys, joking and chatting if it seems appropriate, or quiet and all-business if the dude is sullen or dejected. Like the head, the feet also tell the story on the row. Prisoners who can’t afford the $38 white Converse tennies wear state shoes or slippers. All state gear makes a lot more noise. You can tell the mood of the prisoner by the sound of his shuffle in state shoes or slippers. Shh-shh-ssst, goes the dragging feet of a downer. Clip-clop-clap, patters the bouyant man’s prance in his plastic-shorn, high-steppin’ feet. He’s “trying to get somewhere,” as they say in here, and today it’s not the needle.
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